The Traffic Stop and the Locked Glovebox
Officer Diaz stops a car for a burned-out taillight. The driver, Webb, is nervous and cannot produce registration. Diaz asks Webb to step out; Webb does. Diaz notices a closed backpack on the passenger seat and a locked glovebox. Without asking, Diaz opens the backpack and finds a small bag of pills. He then demands the glovebox key; Webb refuses. Diaz arrests Webb for the pills, handcuffs him, and-without a warrant-pries open the glovebox, finding a handgun. Webb is charged as a felon in possession. The state has no separate statute authorizing vehicle searches incident to arrest. Webb moves to suppress both the pills and the gun.
1. Was the backpack search lawful, and does the gun survive suppression?
Read the worked answer
The backpack search was likely unlawful. Under Arizona v. Gant and California v. Acevedo, officers may search a vehicle incident to arrest only when the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment, or when it is reasonable to believe evidence of the offense of arrest is in the vehicle. Here Webb was arrested for the pills, handcuffed, and secured; the glovebox search was not justified as incident to arrest, and the pills offense did not supply probable cause to believe a gun was in the glovebox. The backpack was a closed container; absent probable cause or consent, opening it violated the Fourth Amendment. The gun, found by prying the glovebox without a warrant, is fruit of the poisonous tree unless an exception (inevitable discovery, independent source) applies. Both should be suppressed.
2. Could the state argue the automobile exception or inventory search to save the gun?
Read the worked answer
The automobile exception requires probable cause that contraband or evidence is in the specific place searched. Nothing suggested a gun was in the glovebox; nervousness and a traffic stop do not supply it. The inventory search exception applies only after lawful impoundment under standardized procedures; there is no indication the car was impounded or that a written policy governed the glovebox. The state might argue the gun would have been inevitably discovered during a lawful inventory, but it must prove the inventory would have occurred and followed routine practice-unlikely on these facts. The exclusionary rule should bar the gun, and the pills should be suppressed as the tainted origin of the arrest.